According to the US Ambassador to the United Nations, turmoil in the Middle East could lead to another world war.

"Zalmay Khalilzad told the daily Die Presse the Middle East was now so disordered that it had the potential to inflame the world as Europe did during the first half of the 20th century," Reuters reports.

The Middle East "is going through a very difficult transformation phase. That has strengthened extremism and creates a breeding ground for terrorism," Khalilzad said in remarks translated by Reuters into English from the published German. "Europe was just as dysfunctional for a while. And some of its wars became world wars. Now the problems of the Middle East and Islamic civilization have the same potential to engulf."

Khalilzad, who has served on Bush's foreign policy team since 2000, also "was a charter signatory of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) founding statement of principles, and he signed two subsequent PNAC letters," according to Right Web.

“We may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War,” Khalilzad wrote Clinton along with fellow PNAC members and future Bush administration members/Iraq war architects Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz in January of 1998. “Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater.”

Excerpts from Reuters article:

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Khalilzad, interviewed by Die Presse while attending a foreign policy seminar in the Austrian Alps, said the Islamic world would eventually join the international mainstream but this would take some time. "They started late. They don't have a consensus on their concept. Some believe they should return to the time (6th-7th century) of the Prophet Mohammad," he was quoted as saying. "It may take decades before some understand that they can remain Muslims and simultaneously join the modern world."

Khalilzad was also quoted as saying Iraq would need foreign forces for security for a long time to come. "Iraq will not be in a position to stand on its own feet for a longer period," he said in the interview.

Asked whether that could be 10-20 years, he said: "Yes, indeed, it could last that long. What form the help takes will depend a lot on the Iraqis. Up to now there is no accord between Iraq and the United States about a longer military presence."